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tough meat see page 226) should be boiled, baked, or broiled, choosing oftenest the last two methods, because of the more perfect retention of the juices and the fine flavor given to the outer layer.

2d, as to econ

We are told that baking or broiling is a very waste

omy. ful way of cooking meat; that if we would be truly economical we would always boil or stew, using our meat or its juices to flavor vegetables. From this we must dissent, for it would condemn us to such a monotony as would be unendurable even to the poor. Better sometimes a smaller piece of broiled or baked meat with its delicious and stimulating flavor, and make our soup with vegetables and season it with herbs. Besides, according to the scientists, baking and broiling are not wasteful methods. I quote from a table of Professor König's, wherein are given the results of analysis of beef raw, after boiling, and after braten. Raw, it contained .86 per cent extractives (nitrogenous bodies mostly; very important as giving the stimulating smell and taste) and 1.23 per cent salts.

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The advantage is seen to be in favor of braten, both in regard to extractives and salts. The loss of water was nearly the same in both cases. As for the fat lost in broiling a beefsteak, that is indeed a loss, but one to be made up in some measure by the smaller quantity of fuel necessary to cook the meat. The loss of this fat need not be made so much of, until we have learned to do better in many other still more important directions.

The philosophy of cooking meat according to the different methods has been treated, and we will now give a few additional directions as to carrying out these methods.

Materials for soup making.

SOUP MAKING.

Lean meat of any sort, beef best; fresh, better than that long kept; bones of next value, especially the spongy rib bones and vertebræ. Saw and chop the bones into

little pieces, cut the meat small.

Soft water is better than hard.

Method of making.

cumulate.

Keep a kettle, if possible, for this purpose alone, and add to it all bits of meat and bones as they ac

Put the meat into cold water, let it stand some hours if possible, heat very gradually, and keep simmering. Two hours or less brings out all the flavors of the meat, but a much longer time is necessary to get all the nutriment from the bones.

Do not remove the scum; it contains the albumen Skimming. of the soup, and nothing objectionable if the meat

was well cleaned.

An hour before the soup is served, add flavors; onions and carrots are the best, celery, summer savory, and parsley next. Use others, as cloves, nutmeg, bay leaf, etc., only occasionally. Add salt and pepper just before serving.

When done, strain and skim off all fat (better if left to stand till next day, the fat removed, and the soup simply rewarmed), and make such additions as you wish.

[We prefer our soups with the fat removed, but the laboring people of Europe with their hardy stomachs find a soup much better if covered with "eyes. "]

These rules apply to all meat soups. and nutritious soup, veal a delicate soup. made from a calf's head.

BOILING.

Mutton makes a strong
An excellent soup is

Put the meat into boiling water, bring quickly To boil meat. again to a boil and keep so for ten minutes, then lower the temperature (as see page 219), and so keep it till the meat in the center has reached 160°-170°, or has changed in color from bluish to red, our usual test. For use of the "cooking safe" for this purpose, see page 226. Braising, "a la mode," kettle roasts, etc., are but modifications of this method.

To make meat

This is a combination of soup making and boiling. stews. Use inferior parts, cut in pieces and cook, at 170° if possible, till tender. Half an hour before serving, season in any way you wish. See page 228.

How to prepare

suet in which

FRYING IN FAT.

Lard, if used for this purpose, should be tried out at

to fry meat. home, but beef fat is cheaper and if nicely prepared

no one can object to the taste.

Cut the fresh suet in pieces, and cover with cold water. Let it stand a day, changing the water once in the time. This takes out the peculiar tallowy taste. Now put it in an iron kettle with a half teacup of milk to each pound of suet, and let it cook very slowly till the fat is clear and light brown in color, and till the sound of the cooking has ceased. The pieces may be loosened from the bottom with a spoon, but it is not to be stirred; if it burns the taste is ruined. Now let it stand and partly cool, then pour off into cups to become cold; it smells as sweet as butter and can in many cases be used instead of it. The fat still left in the pieces may be pressed out for less particular uses. Any clean fat, even mutton, has its uses in cookery and should be tried out and kept nicely.

There are oils now sold which but for prejudice we Oils for use in frying. would always use. Pure cotton-seed oil is a fine oil with a delicate flavor; rape seed oil, which is used extensively abroad for this purpose, is also a pure vegetable oil, but somewhat rank in flavor. It is treated thus: a raw potato is cut up and put into the kettle, heating with the oil and cooking till it is brown, it is then taken out and the oil used like lard. The potato has absorbed the rank flavor.

Thin pieces of meat, like cutlets and chops, are coated with beaten egg and bread crumbs and cooked in boiling fat for five to ten minutes, according to the kind of meat.

To bake meat.

Make some beef fat hot in an iron pan or broad kettle. Put the meat into it, and with a fork stuck into the fat part, turn it rapidly till it is on all sides a fine brown, then put it into a hot oven (about 340° F.), elevating it above the pan on a meat rack, or a few iron rods. Now comes the pro

cess called basting; in five minutes or less you will Basting. find that the top of the meat has dried, and you must now dip, with a spoon, the hot fat from the pan over the top. Do this every few minutes, adding no water to the pan; you will find your meat well cooked in from twelve to fifteen minutes to the pound. It is done when it has lost, in the middle, the blue color, and become a fine red. Only salt and pepper should be used to season such a roast, and must be added when the meat is half done; if earlier, it toughens the fibres.

To broil meat.

But when fuel is expensive, or in summer when a hot fire is a nuisance, the perfectly cooked meat can also be obtained by broiling; the management of the fire is the only trouble. We are told that a beefsteak for broiling should be cut three fourths of an inch thick, and put over a hot fire of coal or charcoal; quite right, but when it has browned quickly, as it should, and been turned and browned on the other side, it yet remains raw in the middle, and if left longer the surface burns. This is the experience of the novice, who has yet to learn two things; first, that immediately after the first browning, the fire must decrease in heat, or the meat be brought further away, so that the steak may cook ten to twelve minutes without burning-less time will not cook it nicely in the middle; and second, that like baked meat, the surface must be kept moist with hot fat. Before your steak is put over (unless it be very well streaked with fat), cover both sides with melted suet, and afterwards, as it dries, spread on a little butter or beef fat. Have ready in a hot platter a few spoonfuls of water in which the bones cut from the steak have been boiling, also salt and pepper. When the steak is done, lay it in a platter and keep it hot for five minutes, turning it once in the time; thus you will have both good steak and good gravy.

Use of charcoal.

Professional cooks always use charcoal for broiling, and its advantages are great. As described on page 211 it needs only a simple contrivance, easily adjusted to any stove; a handful will broil a pound of steak, and the cooking of the rest of the dinner can go on without interference.

USE OF THE THERMOMETER IN COOKING MEAT.

To cook meat at a temperature of between 150° and 160° F., is no easy matter with the usual kitchen appliances. Even over an easily regulated heater, as a gas or coal oil flame, how are we to know that temperature when it is reached? The writer, knowing of no thermometer arranged for use in a kitchen, constructed a simple one after the model of those used in laboratories. A thermometer tube registering 300° Celsius was simply fastened into a cork, the bulb projecting below and protected by a short cylinder of wood. This floated on the water and made

it easy to cook at any given temperature. This thermometer was also hung in a light wire frame and used for testing the heat of an oven.

THE HEAT SAVER.

It is a part of common information that the inhabitants of northern countries make extensive use of non-conducting substances, like wool, for preventing the escape of heat from a vessel in which cooking is going on. It is strange that we do not make more use of such appliances, for they have often been described and illustrated; it is probably because they are not found ready-made, and with a complete list of directions for The writer made and used a cooker of this sort, and after considerable modification and experiment it became a useful thing in the kitchen. If you wish to cook meat at the proper temperature, this contrivance makes it possible to do so, and is also very saving of fuel.

use.

Directions for

saver.

Take a packing box, measuring say two feet each making heat way, and cover the bottom with a layer of packed wool four to six inches thick; set into the middle of this another box or a cylinder of sheet iron and fill the space between the two with a layer of wool four to six inches thick and closely packed. Into the inner compartment put your kettle of meat or vegetables already brought to the boiling point and having a tightly fitting cover, and over this press a thick pillow or woolen blanket. Then fasten down tight over all the lid of your box. As the heat in the water must finish the cooking already begun, its amount must be rightly proportioned to the amount of food to be cooked, e. g., two quarts of water to and one half pounds beef rib were used. The water was brought to the boiling point, the meat placed in it and allowed to for five minutes, the pot was then tightly covered, placed in the box and allowed to remain three hours. At the end of that time

the meat was tender.

To make meat

TO MAKE MEAT TENDER.

one

boil

time

It is well known that meat must be kept some tender. after killing to make it tender. In winter a large piece of beef or mutton will keep for six weeks if hung in a dry,

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